Supercharged

Door handles break, very common problem. Only fix is to replace - do a search on here, lots of stuff about it and upgrading to rear passat handles.

Yeah, I have A539's all round and find there great in the dry but still perform well in the wet! The Toyo's are good for the price but wear very quickly, I think the Yoko's are well worth the extra.

Theres also a guy on here who's 15 with an SLC!

T cut is good stuff but bear in mind what it does (CUT the paint), after applying it you should then wax it to protect the 'new' paintwork Also bear in mind that there is T cut and Metallic T cut Another tip - keep it on the paint only... DO NOT get it on the black plastic trim or window seals! Can also recomend Clay Barring as an alternative - really good finish

Finally... after all the fun and games yesterday, I got up early to take a trip to a local scrap yard to see if they had a Passat sunroof and a few other bits... Driving slowly along a single track road in the wet a was met by a woman in a micra doing about 40 towards me, I had stopped before she even thought about braking (dosey cow), she then proceeded to lock her wheels up and plough straight into the side of me... Luckily I was driving my sisters 1ltr Polo at the time and being a good 'ol Vee 'Dubya it only ripped of a bit of plastic side moulding - the other car has a scratch and dent running all along one side!! - quite impressive for 10.30 am on a sunday, I'm not usually up until midday :D

Do you ever get the feeling your fighting a loosing battle...? Fix one thing then discover another 2 problems!! Yesterday morning I'd arranged to meet a friend who works in a local garage and do a bit of servicing on my car, he gets free use of the ramps / tools etc on saturdays to do his own / friends cars which is handy... and only charges the price of a few beers! Anyways, we set about changing the rear pads and changed the fluid, everything going fine... I had bought a PAS belt from GSF as the other one was cracked, the BOSCH belt they sold me turned out to be the wrong size (just the latest in wrong parts from GSF i'd got latly!!! - I will put this in another thread as its something people should be aware of) - Lukily i managed to get another belt from a place up the road and on it went, also wanted to do the fuel filter as I don't think it had ever been changed! - the screw holding this on would not budge so we cut off and cable tied the new one on using 2 new hose clips. Checking the rest of the car after fixing a couple of missing screws and plastic covers not sitting quite right and a badly routed brake cable (not put back properly after previous work!) , I noticed that there was alot of play on one of the front wheels... Thought it was the bearing at first but the whole wheel, brakes, damper moves so looks like one of the ball joints on the Tie rod has gone, this will hopefully be a nice cheap and easy part to fix if it is that and not the whole steering rack! So after minor problems we checked our work and got the wheels back on, the garage was about to close so went to start the car, It turned a couple of times (but didn't catch as expected after fitting the new filter) - went to turn again and was completly dead, nothing! Luckily a certain Mr Haywire had come down to have a look at the car (or take the piss - still not sure which one it was!) as he only lives up the road. After checking around, starter, batery, fuses etc I noticed that I was not getting any lights on the dash when the key was at point 2 but lights came on when I turned to start it (but no starter) - we then thought it was the imobiliser (clifford alarm) and spent a bit of time messing around with the modes etc trying to get it to fire up, whilst doing this I noticed if I moved the key about in the 3rd position, the heater fan would come on but still no start. After managing to bump start in reverse with the key turned fully- we came to the conclusion the the ignition switch had broken (as it switched off when I let the key go) and position 2 had become 3 hence the car not being able to start! (what are the chances of that??? - about the same as the plug to the starter breaking on the way down to Woburn Abbey!?!) Time was running out, it was getting cold and it wasn't the part of town I wanted to leave my car overnight! - VAG, GSF and eurocarparts had all closed by now so no chece of getting a new switch that day! - A good reason not to do any repairs on a weekend at all now!! I owe Kev a big thanks for giving up his afternoon to help me get it sorted and back on the road and the folowing guide should be useful to others in the same position (especially as the Ignition switch is another one of those 'Common Problems') Mr Haywire's Guide to Hotwire... After a trip to halfords for some 17A wire and blue spade connectors and to pick up a few tools we returned to the car and I removed the lower steering cowling and the plug from the ignition switch... I have to give Kev all the credit for the next bit that took him less than 15 minutes, I had a copy of the Bentley manual in the boot with wiring diags that he didn't even need to look at! Basically he made up a lead using 4 10cm lengths of the 17A cable with all 4 wires going into one spade connector for the earth (black wire on plug) and we plugged the rest into the other points on the plug except the 50A starter motor wire (red and bleck). The car was now at the second stage on the ignition switch and we touched the other wire onto the connector to turn the starter and we were back in business (after just about remembering to take the car out of gear first and using the key to turn off the steering lock before moving it! The picture below shows the lead that I think everone should make up and keep in the car with there spare bulbs / fuses / hose clips etc - the other lead which is not connected is the one to the the Large 30A red wire that feeds power to the dash thru the ignition which you remove to stop the engine (then plugs back in to give ignition switch 2 position) Again I'd like to thank Kev for his help and quick thinking and i'll be going to purchase 2 new switches from VAG tomorrow, one for me and a spare one for him!

The Colour

Yes, the pressure needs to be there else the boiling point will be far lower than it should be!

Yes, VAG disks are very good for the price or if you want to uprate them get the Pagid grooved. Pagid fast road Pads will be fine with either choice

Yeah, all corrado's should have ISO's but may be worth checking first as its highly likely that a 10 year old sports car has been broken into at somepoint in its lifetime and the wiring cut and bodged back up!

People who put roof rails on a C should be shot!

Yeah sorry, thats what I meant, the 'off the shelf' chips are the problem. I reckon a 'custom' chip might sort it out! - maybe you should try it with the original back in if you still have it?

Yeah the numbers changed. you need 2 of 6X2 998 406 which is an arm with blade already fitted The dealers can get these next day and mine cost £35 all in

I think the flat spots are to do with custom chips as mine didn't show any, just a constant rise in power up to 170BHP (standard car + powerflow cat-back now on 83k) I did get a very slight dip in Torque at around 4k but got up to 167 lb/ft Stealth Rollers = Proper Bo!

Yeah have a look on the website http://www.powerflow.uk.com/

This is really weird, we were discussing this at work today! - alot of our users work in old buildings that wer'nt designed for PC's let alone all the cables, peripherals etc.. I made a comment to a woman who was sitting right next to a massive Kyocera laser printer which was there first but when she started that was the only place for a desk, she said she'd just got used to the noise but was'nt aware of the other effects it could have on her especially bearing in mind there was no ventilation to the office whatsoever!! - not good :? Not as bad as my previous job tho, managers would buy printers capable of serving whole departments just for them to use because if they didn't spend the money in there budget they would loose it next year! I installed an HP laserjet 8550 in a single person office, they even ordered the model that had a built in network card without checking they had a free point first, I connected it to the PC with a parrellel cable :shock: and upon asking who else needed to be setup to print to it I was told no-one as they didn't want people wandering in and out all the time! And yes that was one of the main reasons I left the NHS, we had absolutly no say it what got spent, we could only recommend as they all had there own budgets - the PCT's (Primary Care Trusts) were the worst offenders (complete waste of money) - In my current job I now earn more than my mum after 3 years experience in IT, she has been a Staff Nurse for the last 20 years and initially did 3 years training to become one! - Don't you just love this country!! :mad:

Can I get a Reeeeewind!

His car just cut out completly driving up the A14 - was definetly the fuel pump that had failed.

Oooooh Yeeeeah :lol:

could be a faulty relay or bad earth

Mike16v, sounds like you may have the early signs of a leaking slave cylinder or other hydrolic leak

It's not great but I think It's worth the £4.99 there currently selling them off for.

Not yet mate, I'll let you know...

My Kamei one has about 8-10 screws i think, It may stay on with less tho as the sloping bonnet clamps it down (unlike the mk2 golf ones) The holes are suprisingly easy to drill into the slam panel and the lenses.

They obviously didn't get it sorted out in time and gave us all the crappy handles that break instead!!